Killings at Qana

Israeli missiles hit a legendary biblical city, killing dozens of civilians in one house, the majority of them women and children.

By Kevin Sites, Sun Jul 30, 10:54 PM ET

Email Story IM Story

QANA, Lebanon - In the worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the beginning of Israel war on Lebanon

Israel's offensive against Hezbollah over two weeks ago, at least 25 people were killed early Sunday, including at least 19 children, when missiles struck a house where many were huddled in the basement, according to Red Cross and Lebanese army officials at the scene.

Reports of the death toll varied, as is often the case with an event as chaotic as this. News agencies reported that more than 50 were killed, citing conflicting numbers from officials and eyewitnesses.

In the chaotic aftermath at Qana, casualty figures differed. » View

Amid an international outcry over the attack, Israel agreed to halt its bombing campaign in Lebanon for 48 hours pending a probe of the incident. Indeed, early Monday morning here, aside from the sound of drone aircraft, there are no sounds of jets over Lebanese skies for the first time in weeks.

Ghazi Addibi, a farmer who lives in Qana, says the bombing began around 1 a.m. Sunday and that he counted 120 explosions throughout the night, two of them hitting the house next to his where two families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had taken refuge.

Many people in the village had taken to sleeping in their basements because of the aerial bombardment that has continued here almost day and night since the Israelis began their offensive.

"We heard the screams of one of the boys who was blown out of the building," says Abbas Kassab, who also lives in Qana. "He was alive but his legs were badly damaged and someone came out of the rubble with the boy's dead sister and laid her next to him. When we saw what had happened to the house we just all started digging with our hands or hoes, whatever we had, until the big machinery arrived."

Ghazi Adibbi says the two families, like many others left behind, didn't have the money to flee to safe havens in the north.

"They were just farmers and couldn't leave their fields," Adibbi says. "Besides, who has the money ... to get to Beirut?"

Qana is the legendary village in the Bible where Jesus Christ is said to have performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding party. It is five kilometers south of the city of Tyre, a way station in southern Lebanon for people fleeing to the north.

This is not the first time Qana has experienced wartime tragedy. In 1996, Israel struck a U.N. base sheltering Lebanese here, killing over 100 people. That attack sparked political fallout, as the current attack already has done. On Sunday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said he canceled meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in the region for a second round of diplomacy.

The worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the current crisis erupted » View

Many of the bodies from the Qana attack had already been taken to the Tyre City Hospital by the time I got to Qana. Identification was removed from their clothing; they were numbered and catalogued and then wrapped in black plastic, their names written on the masking tape that binds the plastic before being placed in a refrigerated truck.

But five children are still in one of the ambulances at the scene of the attack. A Red Cross worker opens the doors to reveal the bodies of five boys aged from five to fifteen. He pulls the blankets back to show the bruised and dusty corpses.

He picks up the body of the smallest one and holds it up for a second to show us. The boy is dressed in green shorts and white sleeveless t-shirt. Aside from the white dust that covers his body, there are no signs of the blast trauma and falling concrete that likely killed him. His eyes are closed and the only evidence of his violent death seems to be the slight gritting of his teeth.

United Nations soldiers from China arrives in Qana with a large backhoe and together with a bulldozer from the Lebanese Army begins digging through the piles of concrete and twisted rebar.

It is a slow process. Two stories of the three-story building have collapsed, leaving a twisted mess that is not easily pulled apart. After two hours of digging there's still no sign of any more bodies.

This house was only one of many buildings bombed in Qana overnight, with no word on casualties from other locations. But in driving to the location I could see huge swaths of destruction which included everything from residences and a supermarket to a small mosque.

Under a pile of rubble at the mosque is a small sign of Qana's life before the bombing: a note handwritten on white lined paper. My translator reads portions of it aloud. It is a letter from a woman telling a man that she doesn't love him because he has not shown her respect. The letter and emotions conveyed in it, would, in another time, seem quite important, at least to the two people involved, but here in this dust-laced and possibly irreparably broken place, it is just another thing scattered on the streets.

Kevin Sites reports from the scene of the Qana attack » View

I ask Abbas Kassab why the Israelis would strike Qana so severely — what tactical or strategic value it might have. But he is adamant that there is none — that Hezbollah, or the resistance, as the Lebanese call it, does not operate in the village.

"There's no resistance here. Israel is lying. There are no resistance fighters here. Children are playing; there are no resistance at all," he says. "There was a mother with a seven-month-old child that was killed. Was she a resistance fighter?"

Israel argues otherwise. Israeli officials were quick to voice their regret for the loss of civilian life but placed the blame on Hezbollah, saying that Hezbollah had been using positions around Qana, including near the buildings targeted, to launch rockets at Israel. Hezbollah has launched daily rocket barrages toward Israel during the current crisis, killing 18 Israeli civilians, according to news reports. It was Hezbollah's cross border raid into Israel on July 12 that sparked the current crisis.

The contradictory claims mirror other conflict scenes I have visited in the south of Lebanon this week, with people on the street arguing strenuously that Hezbollah had no presence in the area, and Israel claiming otherwise. On Wednesday, at the scene of a bombed apartment building in Tyre, I met a man who told me that the area had nothing to do with Hezbollah, but press reports said the building was the office of Hezbollah's southern Lebanon commander, Sheik Nabil Kaouk.

I ask Abbas Kassab who he blames for the bombing and death in Qana, and the answer I receive is similar to what I have heard elsewhere on the streets of Lebanon:

"America," he says. "Only America."

"Why?"

"America gave the green light for Israel to do this. Israel can't shoot one bullet without America's permission. America is responsible. There are not resistance fighters here. Only kids playing. Even if there were, why would they kill civilians? Let them fight in Bint Jbail where the resistance is. Let Israel go to Bint Jbail and see what they can do."

Meanwhile, five hours of digging has turned up no new bodies and both the Lebanese Army and the U.N. contingent know they're running out of time. There's only an hour of daylight left to dig.

Now villagers in Qana tell them there are only five people that are unaccounted for, not the 25 or 30 they originally thought. The excavation teams give up the dig at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. A beautiful soft dusk falls over the surrounding hills and valleys, a sharp contrast to the death and destruction they have been knee-deep in for more than 12 hours.

Despite what has happened here, Ghazi Adibbi says he and the others that are left will likely stay in the village. What has happened has hardened his heart about the conflict.

"We are resisting. We don't want a cease-fire anymore," he says. "We want the resistance to bomb Israel every day."

Killings at Qana

Israeli missiles hit a legendary biblical city, killing dozens of civilians in one house, the majority of them women and children.

By Kevin Sites, Sun Jul 30, 10:54 PM ET

Email Story IM Story

QANA, Lebanon - In the worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the beginning of

Israel

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | News Photos | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

Israel's offensive against Hezbollah over two weeks ago, at least 25 people were killed early Sunday, including at least 19 children, when missiles struck a house where many were huddled in the basement, according to Red Cross and Lebanese army officials at the scene.

Reports of the death toll varied, as is often the case with an event as chaotic as this. News agencies reported that more than 50 were killed, citing conflicting numbers from officials and eyewitnesses.

In the chaotic aftermath at Qana, casualty figures differed. » View

Amid an international outcry over the attack, Israel agreed to halt its bombing campaign in Lebanon for 48 hours pending a probe of the incident. Indeed, early Monday morning here, aside from the sound of drone aircraft, there are no sounds of jets over Lebanese skies for the first time in weeks.

Ghazi Addibi, a farmer who lives in Qana, says the bombing began around 1 a.m. Sunday and that he counted 120 explosions throughout the night, two of them hitting the house next to his where two families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had taken refuge.

Many people in the village had taken to sleeping in their basements because of the aerial bombardment that has continued here almost day and night since the Israelis began their offensive.

"We heard the screams of one of the boys who was blown out of the building," says Abbas Kassab, who also lives in Qana. "He was alive but his legs were badly damaged and someone came out of the rubble with the boy's dead sister and laid her next to him. When we saw what had happened to the house we just all started digging with our hands or hoes, whatever we had, until the big machinery arrived."

Ghazi Adibbi says the two families, like many others left behind, didn't have the money to flee to safe havens in the north.

"They were just farmers and couldn't leave their fields," Adibbi says. "Besides, who has the money ... to get to Beirut?"

Qana is the legendary village in the Bible where Jesus Christ is said to have performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding party. It is five kilometers south of the city of Tyre, a way station in southern Lebanon for people fleeing to the north.

This is not the first time Qana has experienced wartime tragedy. In 1996, Israel struck a U.N. base sheltering Lebanese here, killing over 100 people. That attack sparked political fallout, as the current attack already has done. On Sunday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said he canceled meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in the region for a second round of diplomacy.

The worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the current crisis erupted » View

Many of the bodies from the Qana attack had already been taken to the Tyre City Hospital by the time I got to Qana. Identification was removed from their clothing; they were numbered and catalogued and then wrapped in black plastic, their names written on the masking tape that binds the plastic before being placed in a refrigerated truck.

But five children are still in one of the ambulances at the scene of the attack. A Red Cross worker opens the doors to reveal the bodies of five boys aged from five to fifteen. He pulls the blankets back to show the bruised and dusty corpses.

He picks up the body of the smallest one and holds it up for a second to show us. The boy is dressed in green shorts and white sleeveless t-shirt. Aside from the white dust that covers his body, there are no signs of the blast trauma and falling concrete that likely killed him. His eyes are closed and the only evidence of his violent death seems to be the slight gritting of his teeth.

By early afternoon a contingent of

United Nations

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | News Photos | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

United Nations soldiers from China arrives in Qana with a large backhoe and together with a bulldozer from the Lebanese Army begins digging through the piles of concrete and twisted rebar.

It is a slow process. Two stories of the three-story building have collapsed, leaving a twisted mess that is not easily pulled apart. After two hours of digging there's still no sign of any more bodies.

This house was only one of many buildings bombed in Qana overnight, with no word on casualties from other locations. But in driving to the location I could see huge swaths of destruction which included everything from residences and a supermarket to a small mosque.

Under a pile of rubble at the mosque is a small sign of Qana's life before the bombing: a note handwritten on white lined paper. My translator reads portions of it aloud. It is a letter from a woman telling a man that she doesn't love him because he has not shown her respect. The letter and emotions conveyed in it, would, in another time, seem quite important, at least to the two people involved, but here in this dust-laced and possibly irreparably broken place, it is just another thing scattered on the streets.

Kevin Sites reports from the scene of the Qana attack » View

I ask Abbas Kassab why the Israelis would strike Qana so severely — what tactical or strategic value it might have. But he is adamant that there is none — that Hezbollah, or the resistance, as the Lebanese call it, does not operate in the village.

"There's no resistance here. Israel is lying. There are no resistance fighters here. Children are playing; there are no resistance at all," he says. "There was a mother with a seven-month-old child that was killed. Was she a resistance fighter?"

Israel argues otherwise. Israeli officials were quick to voice their regret for the loss of civilian life but placed the blame on Hezbollah, saying that Hezbollah had been using positions around Qana, including near the buildings targeted, to launch rockets at Israel. Hezbollah has launched daily rocket barrages toward Israel during the current crisis, killing 18 Israeli civilians, according to news reports. It was Hezbollah's cross border raid into Israel on July 12 that sparked the current crisis.

The contradictory claims mirror other conflict scenes I have visited in the south of Lebanon this week, with people on the street arguing strenuously that Hezbollah had no presence in the area, and Israel claiming otherwise. On Wednesday, at the scene of a bombed apartment building in Tyre, I met a man who told me that the area had nothing to do with Hezbollah, but press reports said the building was the office of Hezbollah's southern Lebanon commander, Sheik Nabil Kaouk.

I ask Abbas Kassab who he blames for the bombing and death in Qana, and the answer I receive is similar to what I have heard elsewhere on the streets of Lebanon:

"America," he says. "Only America."

"Why?"

"America gave the green light for Israel to do this. Israel can't shoot one bullet without America's permission. America is responsible. There are not resistance fighters here. Only kids playing. Even if there were, why would they kill civilians? Let them fight in Bint Jbail where the resistance is. Let Israel go to Bint Jbail and see what they can do."

Meanwhile, five hours of digging has turned up no new bodies and both the Lebanese Army and the U.N. contingent know they're running out of time. There's only an hour of daylight left to dig.

Now villagers in Qana tell them there are only five people that are unaccounted for, not the 25 or 30 they originally thought. The excavation teams give up the dig at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. A beautiful soft dusk falls over the surrounding hills and valleys, a sharp contrast to the death and destruction they have been knee-deep in for more than 12 hours.

Despite what has happened here, Ghazi Adibbi says he and the others that are left will likely stay in the village. What has happened has hardened his heart about the conflict.

"We are resisting. We don't want a cease-fire anymore," he says. "We want the resistance to bomb Israel every day."

Killings at Qana

Israeli missiles hit a legendary biblical city, killing dozens of civilians in one house, the majority of them women and children.

By Kevin Sites, Sun Jul 30, 10:54 PM ET

Email Story IM Story

QANA, Lebanon - In the worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the beginning of

Israel

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | News Photos | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

Israel's offensive against Hezbollah over two weeks ago, at least 25 people were killed early Sunday, including at least 19 children, when missiles struck a house where many were huddled in the basement, according to Red Cross and Lebanese army officials at the scene.

Reports of the death toll varied, as is often the case with an event as chaotic as this. News agencies reported that more than 50 were killed, citing conflicting numbers from officials and eyewitnesses.

In the chaotic aftermath at Qana, casualty figures differed. » View

Amid an international outcry over the attack, Israel agreed to halt its bombing campaign in Lebanon for 48 hours pending a probe of the incident. Indeed, early Monday morning here, aside from the sound of drone aircraft, there are no sounds of jets over Lebanese skies for the first time in weeks.

Ghazi Addibi, a farmer who lives in Qana, says the bombing began around 1 a.m. Sunday and that he counted 120 explosions throughout the night, two of them hitting the house next to his where two families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had taken refuge.

Many people in the village had taken to sleeping in their basements because of the aerial bombardment that has continued here almost day and night since the Israelis began their offensive.

"We heard the screams of one of the boys who was blown out of the building," says Abbas Kassab, who also lives in Qana. "He was alive but his legs were badly damaged and someone came out of the rubble with the boy's dead sister and laid her next to him. When we saw what had happened to the house we just all started digging with our hands or hoes, whatever we had, until the big machinery arrived."

Ghazi Adibbi says the two families, like many others left behind, didn't have the money to flee to safe havens in the north.

"They were just farmers and couldn't leave their fields," Adibbi says. "Besides, who has the money ... to get to Beirut?"

Qana is the legendary village in the Bible where Jesus Christ is said to have performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding party. It is five kilometers south of the city of Tyre, a way station in southern Lebanon for people fleeing to the north.

This is not the first time Qana has experienced wartime tragedy. In 1996, Israel struck a U.N. base sheltering Lebanese here, killing over 100 people. That attack sparked political fallout, as the current attack already has done. On Sunday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said he canceled meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in the region for a second round of diplomacy.

The worst incident of civilian casualties in Lebanon since the current crisis erupted » View

Many of the bodies from the Qana attack had already been taken to the Tyre City Hospital by the time I got to Qana. Identification was removed from their clothing; they were numbered and catalogued and then wrapped in black plastic, their names written on the masking tape that binds the plastic before being placed in a refrigerated truck.

But five children are still in one of the ambulances at the scene of the attack. A Red Cross worker opens the doors to reveal the bodies of five boys aged from five to fifteen. He pulls the blankets back to show the bruised and dusty corpses.

He picks up the body of the smallest one and holds it up for a second to show us. The boy is dressed in green shorts and white sleeveless t-shirt. Aside from the white dust that covers his body, there are no signs of the blast trauma and falling concrete that likely killed him. His eyes are closed and the only evidence of his violent death seems to be the slight gritting of his teeth.

By early afternoon a contingent of

United Nations

" type="hidden"> SEARCH
News | News Photos | Images | Web

" type="hidden">

United Nations soldiers from China arrives in Qana with a large backhoe and together with a bulldozer from the Lebanese Army begins digging through the piles of concrete and twisted rebar.

It is a slow process. Two stories of the three-story building have collapsed, leaving a twisted mess that is not easily pulled apart. After two hours of digging there's still no sign of any more bodies.

This house was only one of many buildings bombed in Qana overnight, with no word on casualties from other locations. But in driving to the location I could see huge swaths of destruction which included everything from residences and a supermarket to a small mosque.

Under a pile of rubble at the mosque is a small sign of Qana's life before the bombing: a note handwritten on white lined paper. My translator reads portions of it aloud. It is a letter from a woman telling a man that she doesn't love him because he has not shown her respect. The letter and emotions conveyed in it, would, in another time, seem quite important, at least to the two people involved, but here in this dust-laced and possibly irreparably broken place, it is just another thing scattered on the streets.

Kevin Sites reports from the scene of the Qana attack » View

I ask Abbas Kassab why the Israelis would strike Qana so severely — what tactical or strategic value it might have. But he is adamant that there is none — that Hezbollah, or the resistance, as the Lebanese call it, does not operate in the village.

"There's no resistance here. Israel is lying. There are no resistance fighters here. Children are playing; there are no resistance at all," he says. "There was a mother with a seven-month-old child that was killed. Was she a resistance fighter?"

Israel argues otherwise. Israeli officials were quick to voice their regret for the loss of civilian life but placed the blame on Hezbollah, saying that Hezbollah had been using positions around Qana, including near the buildings targeted, to launch rockets at Israel. Hezbollah has launched daily rocket barrages toward Israel during the current crisis, killing 18 Israeli civilians, according to news reports. It was Hezbollah's cross border raid into Israel on July 12 that sparked the current crisis.

The contradictory claims mirror other conflict scenes I have visited in the south of Lebanon this week, with people on the street arguing strenuously that Hezbollah had no presence in the area, and Israel claiming otherwise. On Wednesday, at the scene of a bombed apartment building in Tyre, I met a man who told me that the area had nothing to do with Hezbollah, but press reports said the building was the office of Hezbollah's southern Lebanon commander, Sheik Nabil Kaouk.

I ask Abbas Kassab who he blames for the bombing and death in Qana, and the answer I receive is similar to what I have heard elsewhere on the streets of Lebanon:

"America," he says. "Only America."

"Why?"

"America gave the green light for Israel to do this. Israel can't shoot one bullet without America's permission. America is responsible. There are not resistance fighters here. Only kids playing. Even if there were, why would they kill civilians? Let them fight in Bint Jbail where the resistance is. Let Israel go to Bint Jbail and see what they can do."

Meanwhile, five hours of digging has turned up no new bodies and both the Lebanese Army and the U.N. contingent know they're running out of time. There's only an hour of daylight left to dig.

Now villagers in Qana tell them there are only five people that are unaccounted for, not the 25 or 30 they originally thought. The excavation teams give up the dig at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. A beautiful soft dusk falls over the surrounding hills and valleys, a sharp contrast to the death and destruction they have been knee-deep in for more than 12 hours.

Despite what has happened here, Ghazi Adibbi says he and the others that are left will likely stay in the village. What has happened has hardened his heart about the conflict.

"We are resisting. We don't want a cease-fire anymore," he says. "We want the resistance to bomb Israel every day."

The gathering storm

Posted by Alec Russell at 28 Jul 06 14:49

It would be wrong to suggest there has been much of a debate here about America’s policy towards Israel and the Lebanon. There hasn’t. But I sense it is just starting to get going.

Israel's air raids on Lebanon have not sparked debate

I will pass on to British readers a couple of interesting and rather different perspectives. David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, made two posts particularly worth noting this week, about the death of the UN peacekeepers and about David Cameron, William Hague and the region.

Steven Clemons, the foreign policy director of the New America Foundation thinktank popped up on his blog today after observing a rare implicit criticism of Israel by a congressman, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

I say, rare, inasmuch as with just a few months to go before the mid-terms it takes a forthright politician to brave the wrath of the pro-Israeli fundraising lobby.

I had a taste of such fury when I suggested in an oped the other day that the Bush administration’s record in the region was not particularly praiseworthy. I found myself on the receiving end of a torrent of emailed abuse. That’s enough from “Old Etonian Communists” like you I was told.

For the record that is wrong on both counts, although maybe I should lay claim to membership of the former club, in view of how David Cameron appears to be giving the brand a new lustre….

Shame on you Americans

Show of unanimity as Americans back White House line on Israel
By Alec Russell in Washington

(Filed: 28/07/2006)

When Tony Blair enters the White House today he will pass a lone protester at the gates calling for Israel to halt its offensive in the Lebanon.

In a striking reminder of the ideological chasm between Europe and America, it will probably be the only time in the Prime Minister's four-day US tour that he will come face to face with a critic of Israel.

Democrats and Republicans, liberal chattering classes and conservative evangelicals are as one on Israel, and even newspapers that have been fiercely critical of the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq have fallen into line behind the White House.

Last week the House of Representatives passed a resolution by 410 votes to eight backing Israel against Hizbollah.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, who helped to broker the Israel-Egypt Camp David accord, attributed the conformity of opinion in Congress to the power of pro-Israeli groups raising funds for Democrats and Republicans.

With mid-term congressional elections in November and congressmen looking to their campaign war-chests it was hardly surprising that politicians were not speaking out against Israel, he said.

"[Having just] two years in office and [needing] continuous fund-raising and campaigning - that makes you extremely sensitive to anything that undermines your political prospects," he said. Washington's fabled "Israel lobby", one of its most successful political pressure groups, has clearly played a key part in fostering the convergence of interests.

Steven Clemons, the director of the New America Foundation think-tank, said that Israel and its Jewish diaspora had "hijacked America's foreign policy apparatus. "They have sold the case that American national security interests are identical with Israeli national security interests."

Pro-Israeli activists in Washington counter that Israel's interests in the region are identical to America's.

They argue that the fighting in Gaza and southern Lebanon is part of the US-led "war against terrorism".

The increasingly fervent pro-Israeli sentiment of Christian evangelicals, a hugely influential US voting bloc, has also been a major factor in President George W Bush's staunch support for Israel, and the president is widely seen as the best friend Israel has had in the White House.

A third key factor is America's memories of Hizbollah's 1983 attack on the US barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 Americans and marked America's first setback at the hands of Islamic extremists.

Four congressmen of Lebanese descent have said America will regret its stance, but conceded that their attempts to get the House to express more sympathy for Lebanese civilians had no chance.

Representative Ray La-Hood said: "The House tilts so far toward Israel. . . it would be like going into a tsunami."

Two more US arms planes given permission to refuel in Britain

Two more US arms planes given permission to refuel in Britain
By George Jones and Thomas Harding

(Filed: 28/07/2006)

Despite growing political pressure Tony Blair has given the go-ahead for two more planes carrying bombs and missiles for Israel to refuel at British airports.

On the eve of Mr Blair's talks in Washington with President George W Bush on the Middle East conflict, Downing Street made clear that the flights could go ahead provided proper procedures were followed.

	Glasgow Prestwick Airport

With the fighting in its third week, arms industry sources have indicated that Israel is in need of large amounts of American-supplied precision-guided weapons to attack Hizbollah leaders.

Although No 10 publicly stood by Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, who threatened a diplomatic rift with the US by threatening to lodge a formal protest with Washington, it was clear she had embarrassed Mr Blair.

Mrs Beckett, who was a surprise choice as Foreign Secretary two months ago, was outspoken in her public criticism of the US. She accused it of not following the correct procedures over arms flights and raised the matter with Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state.

She was "not happy" about reports that Prestwick airport had been used for refuelling and crew rests for two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU28 laser-guided bombs, a story first reported by The Daily Telegraph.

Following Mrs Beckett's complaint that the correct procedures were allegedly not followed the Foreign Office said yesterday that officials from the Civil Aviation Authority had taken over the investigation.

They are supposed to report back by the end of this week.

Countries usually have to be given a minimum of 48 hours notice before an arms shipment enters their territory.

It is not clear whether the Prestwick flight violated this or whether Mrs Beckett was questioning if the cargo had the correct transit licence, usually issued by the Department of Trade and Industry.

Although the Israeli arms industry has a large stock of bullets and artillery rounds it relies very heavily on America to provide it with precision guided weapons and spare parts for its F16 fighters and Apache helicopters.

The Israeli military is also looking for resupply of Hellfire anti-tank missiles that have been used against vehicles moving in south Lebanon, arms industry sources said.

The US also has the option of using its leased bases in Britain at Fairford, Gloucs and Lakenheath, Suffolk and others if the pressure on Prestwick becomes too intense.

Downing Street yesterday sought to play down suggestions of a rift with the US, stressing that it was a "procedural" matter, not an issue of principle.

Officials made clear that provided the procedures were followed in future and the correct notification given, future flights would be allowed as they had in the past.

US provides Israel with $17bn array of high-tech weapons

US provides Israel with £9bn ($17 billion) array of high-tech weapons
By Harry de Quetteville, in Jerusalem

(Filed: 28/07/2006)

Israel's warning of a dramatic new bombing campaign will raise fresh questions over the arming and supplying of a military whose tactics have already been widely criticised as "disproportionate".

Britain has been drawn into the controversy after Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, was used as a stop-over point for the delivery of American- built precision guided missiles to Israel.

America supplies the vast majority of equipment to Israel's army. A new report by the Arms Trade Resource Centre, in New York, says that American-built weaponry in Israel's arsenal includes 236 F16 and 89 F15 combat aircraft of the type that is leading the bombardment of Lebanon.

The US has also supplied 136 attack helicopters, including 40 of the Apaches used in "targeted assassinations" of militants in the Palestinian territories. Those helicopters are providing air support for troops fighting street to street in Lebanon. Three have crashed in 10 days, two in a mid-air collision and one in what Israel said was a power line accident. Hizbollah claimed to have shot it down.

Despite an American law preventing arms sales other than for "self-defence and internal security", the US has also supplied an unknown number of Hellfire, Walleye and Maverick air-to-ground missiles, as well as air-to-air Sparrows and Sidewinders. The arms centre report says that Israel has received more than £9.4 billion worth of military aid and equipment since President George W Bush was elected in 2001. But despite its huge arsenal, Israel has urgently requested fresh supplies, in particular powerful bunker-busting bombs, as it strives to kill Hizbollah leaders sheltering underground.

As the controversy over such deliveries grows, America may decide to make future deliveries through its military base in Qatar, its command centre for the Iraq war.

The rush to re-supply Israel is in marked contrast to the US attitude during Israel's last Lebanese incursion in the early 1980s. Then, the Reagan administration cut aid and froze weapons sales while it decided whether the weapons were being used for self-defence. The aid was restarted after Alexander Haig, the secretary of state, said "you could argue until eternity" about whether arms were used for defensive or aggressive purposes.

Israel has a formidable arms industry of its own, which employs more than 50,000 people. It is based on three major firms, all state-owned. It also has a thriving private sector of 150 firms whose products, particularly in electronics, have proved highly successful in the international market.

Chief among the home-grown weapons being used in the present conflict are Merkava tanks, designed to end reliance on vulnerable Sherman and Centurion tanks from the US and Britain, which suffered heavy casualties in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. However, the Merkava has also proved vulnerable. All four crew members of one tank were killed when it hit a Hizbollah mine on the first day of the fighting.

You're all targets, Israel tells Lebanese in South

You're all targets, Israel tells Lebanese in South
By Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem

(Filed: 28/07/2006)

Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel's justice minister said yesterday as the military prepared to employ "huge firepower" from the air in its campaign to crush Hizbollah.

Haim Ramon issued the warning as the Israeli government decided against expanding ground operations after the death of nine soldiers in fighting on Wednesday.

	Ehud Olmert surrounded by bodyguards in northern Israel

"What we should do in southern Lebanon is employ huge firepower before a ground force goes in," Mr Ramon said at a security cabinet meeting headed by Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. Our great advantage vis-a-vis Hizbollah is our firepower, not in face-to-face combat."

Mr Olmert promised that the army would "continue toward the established goals".

Mr Ramon's comments suggested that civilian casualties in Lebanon, which stand at about 600 after 16 days of bombardment, could rise yet higher.

The government's unrelenting line has the backing of the Israeli media, which are demanding a harsh response to an ambush in the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, in which eight soldiers died.

The country's biggest-selling paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said the army had raised the threshold of response to Katyusha rockets.

"In other words: a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire," it said.

"This decision should have been made and executed after the first Katyusha. But better late than never."

Three divisions of reserve soldiers, up to 15,000 men, are to be called up.

Almost 50 Hizbollah missiles landed in northern Israel yesterday, wounding four people and bringing the total number of rockets fired into the country to about 1,400.

Israeli air attack kills 54 civilians, including 37 children

Another massacre in Qana, Lebanon. Israel Kills 54 civilians including 37 children while sleeping in a shelter.

This is not the first time that Israel commit such a crime in Qana. In 1996 Israel bombed a UN shelter killing mroe than 300 women and child.